FONTANA — There were some things that Jurupa Hills softball coach Scott Cartzdafner could count on this season.

For instance, he knew what kind of a season senior Natalie Calderas would produce in a big way as a hitter and in the circle.

One of the unknowns was when, or even if, junior infielder Marci Arevalo would be healthy.

Arevalo has missed games due to injury in each of her three high school seasons, but she’s healthy at the right time going into today’s 12:30 p.m. CIF-SS Division 5 championship game against Citrus Valley at Barber Park in Irvine.

“It’s meant a lot to me. It’s truly amazing to be here with these girls and playing with them,” Arevalo said.

As a freshman, Arevalo missed six weeks, returning just before the playoffs after suffering a concussion on a collision at the plate. It was her second in a three-year span after also suffering one playing basketball in the seventh grade.

Last year, Arevalo collided with left fielder Kristen Benjamin on April 2 against Citrus Valley while trying to make a play on defense. She injured the ligament behind her left knee and missed the rest of the season.

Then just before her junior season, she broke her right wrist while playing catcher for her travel ball team and didn’t play her first game until March 22 against Colton.

“I was about 80 percent when I started playing,” Arevalo said of this year. “By the third game I was 100 percent.”

And despite the early-season interruption, Arevalo has had her best season to date. She did not bat over .300 in either of her first two years, but entering today’s game, she is hitting .382 with 29 runs scored.

“She’s made a big difference for our offense. She gets us started,” Cartzdafner said. “... Imagine what she’d be doing if she’d been healthy.”

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Arevalo echoes those sentiments.

She was converted into a left-handed hitting slap-hitter her freshman year, but has missed the equivalent of an entire season’s worth of games in three years.

“If I had been healthy, I think I’d be hitting much better than I am now,” she said.

For the future, she doesn’t plan on changing the way she plays in order to be less injury-prone.

“I’m going to just keep playing the way I play,” she said.

Said Cartzdafner: “She can play anywhere for us. She’s played the outfield, she’s even pitched.”

But, he said, he doesn’t have any plans to let her catch despite her pleas.